Blizzard

It's been a little while since we've heard from Diablo III, but today the game is working its way back into the news. Blizzard executives and designers recently told Polygon that the studio has a console build of Diablo III "up and running," once again thrusting the oft-rumored console port into the spotlight. Even though the team has made it far enough to have a functioning console build, Blizzard still isn't ready to make an official announcement.

StarCraft II players have been waiting a long time for Blizzard to announce a release date for the game's first expansion, Heart of the Swarm, and it seems the big day has finally arrived. Earlier today, Battle.net was showing a release date of March 12, 2013 for Heart of the Swarm, a date that Blizzard later confirmed. So, only five more months and you can finally get your hands on Heart of the Swarm. Exciting, no?

To many, securing your Battle.net account with one of the authenticators Blizzard offers is just the way the game is played. Folks have been using authenticators to secure their Battle.net accounts for years now, but one player has decided he's had enough. His name is Benjamin Bell, and he's the leading plaintiff in a new class action lawsuit brought against Blizzard.

Activision, perhaps the biggest name in video games at the moment, has reported its financial results for Q3 2012, and as you've probably already guessed, they're pretty darn great. The company brought in a GAAP net revenue of $841 million during the quarter, which up significantly from the $754 million in took in during Q3 2011. It's also $101 million more than the company originally projected, so you can bet that Activision's executives are smiling this evening.

If you were in one of several of the largest cities in World of Warcraft's Azeroth this weekend, it's quite likely that you were killed - but no worry, Blizzard has fixed everything up now with a patch. This patch fixes the exploit that caused level 1 characters to be able to stroll on in to a set of major cities and decimate their entire population of both playable and non-playable characters alike. As it was, images of death were majorly visible to the general population over the weekend, this throwing Blizzard into a tizzy.

Mists of Pandaria, the fourth World of Warcraft expansion, has been available for a little over a week now. Today we're finding out that Mists of Pandaria sold 2.7 million copies in its first week on shelves, which definitely isn't bad, especially for an expansion. However, when held up against the sales of Cataclysm, World of Warcraft's third expansion, Mists of Pandaria sales are a little underwhelming.

Players of the fastest selling PC game in history Diablo III will be glad to find this week that Blizzard, the creator of the game, has added an upgrade that allows characters to level up past 60. This limit on the game has existed since the game's introduction and now it'll be dashed apart with a feature called the Paragon system. This new system has you able to move past your initial 60 levels and into a whole new set of 100 levels that bring on Magic Find and Gold Find that stick to you like stats, and you'll get a whole lot more shiny in groups as well.

The release date for World of Warcraft's latest expansion, Mists of Pandaria, is right around the corner, and as such, Blizzard has started to ramp up the marketing. Today we're being treated to a brand new cinematic trailer for the game, and we have to say it's pretty excellent. The question is: will it be enough to get players interested in returning to World of Warcraft?

Earlier today we received word that Blizzard's battle.net servers have been hacked, and with a recent influx of 10 million users thanks to Diablo III's launch, that makes this potentially devastating for a lot of people. Blizzard has since released an FAQ on battle.net, telling users what exactly was compromised and what remains secure. Those with a North American account (which includes people in Latin America, Australia, New Zealand, and Southeast Asia) were hit the hardest, so if that's you, read on to find out what you can do to keep your account safe.